'86 CRX Si 267K mi. My trusty CRX started leaking oil about a year ago from under the distributor, not too bad so I lived with it. The other day it started a real bad coolant leak from the same area. There is quite a lot of oil build up in this area so it has hard to tell exactly where it is coming from, but it looks like the head/block area (it is not coming from the hose connection to the head). The car runs great, no noticeable compression loss, there is no oil in the coolant or coolant in the oil. Sounds a little strange to me to have a bad head gasket yet nothing is mixing inside the motor, just external leaks. The motor has never been apart, it's been babied all it's life. I've done several timing belts & a clutch on it and that's all.
Is this a common problem area? Could it be something else besides a head gasket?
Just looking for a little info before I start to clean it up and take a closer look.

 

has to be a headgasket.

 

Could very well be the head gasket, but inspect for cracks in the block as well.

 

Just an update, fixed the problem with an o-ring and a hose clamp. The distributor o-ring was rock hard and broke into pieces when I tried to remove it ..... oil leak fixed. Now the coolant leak was a different story. To make a long story short, there was a leak in a hose on the back side of the engine. This was dripping on the oxygen sensor wire and followed the wire into the protective tube which runs across the back of the block and then deposited the coolant in the vicinity of the head gasket on the front side of the engine! After I pulled the distributor I started to remove the oxygen sensor and found a lot of coolant in it's protective wrap. A pressure test located the leak, the path of the coolant and I had a beer.

I may have jumped to conclusions at first (bad head gasket) but careful analysis turned my night mare problem into a relatively easy fix.... this doesn't happen very often.

 

WOW!!! that's great! you definitely saved some $$$ my friend!

 

My distributor O-ring was rock solid too. Constant oil leaking on the coolant hose below caused it to leak, which lead to a similar if not identical problem as you had.

Was hard to tell what was what with different fluids floating around.